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Hello all, and thank you so much for the very warm welcome indeed! We are actually based in Glasgow, but are always back and forth to the far west coast, near the Isle of Mull. Nice to here from fellow Brits and slightly jealous of your sunnier climes! Maybe one day we will get the chance to make it over.

Sorry for the lack of response until now, but we have been away up north visiting the parents, then we had a 5 days on-board our new home to give us a chance to work things out and get things going!

Where to start??

We found that upon filling our fresh water tanks, someone had stolen the 12v pump and in doing so ripped out fair bit of the pipe work in the tank/waste area. Now, I should imagine getting these fittings over the pond would be an easy task, but here is a different story!! I have used 16mm fittings in the past on underfloor heating jobs, but this pipe seemed to have an OD of about 17mm which was very strange indeed!! After trying various things and calling various people (and much swearing!), the decision was taken to just completely re-plumb the bus using 15mm barrier pipe as we commonly use here. It was a bonus to find all of the units had 1/2 inch fittings, so 50 meters of pipe and about 10 flexis later, we were done.

So lovely to have hot and cold running water, and a flushing toilet! We did find the valve on the toilet leaks when flushed and I tried to rebuild it, but it was to far gone for just new O rings and will have to source the parts for it. I think you buy the new valve assembly from what I have found on-line anyway.

We then tested all of the gas appliances with my gas analyser (used to service boilers and still have it!) and satisfied myself that these were OK to leave running. We also made sure the two gas alarms were functioning and fitted an new carbon monoxide unit for extra peace of mind.

One thing I found very strange, and hope someone can shed some light on the matter is to why both LPG systems are not connected? We had the engine running on LPG, but could not get the appliances to run at all. We then traced the feeds back and found another large LPG tank with valve. This also had a filler on it, but being on the opposite side of the bus, cannot understand why the two are not connected.

Having managed to keep the better half happy with hot water and heating, my attention then turned to the electrics, as we have a mixture of 110 and 240v as mentioned previously. We successfully got both systems working by using my 240-110v site transformer and now had ice cold air conditioning units blasting out above our heads. These were quickly shut off, as we are desperately clutching on to the last breaths of summer over here!! Nice to know what the 'front/rear' switch did to at last!

This then brought me to the dash area, as we wanted to swap out the old CRT TV unit to a more lightweight LCD job. Upon removing, I found a strange blue box with 110v on one side and what looked like 12v on the other. Not opened it up yet to check if it was a transformer of relay, but it terminated on a very strange fuse/distribution board behind the instrument cluster.

Not sure if this distribution board is normally sited here, but seems a very strange place to have it, as you need to really get in behind the dash to change anything should they blow. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated!

We also purchased 2 x 6v 900AH batteries from a company who fit them to the overnight sleeper trains here as the assured me that this is all I would ever need. They were not wrong! In the 5 days they ran everything we needed and still allowed us to start the engine using the auxiliary start function due to the main battery needing replaced, as it is in very poor condition. We though we would have some form of charging device when plugged into mains power, but either this does not work, or has been stolen too! Will investigate further soon, but maybe someone knows if they should actually charge on 'shore' power, or do they just charge from alternator on engine?

Well hope this hasn't bored the proverbials off everyone and any help on these matters would be greatly welcomed.

Annierufus, I would certainly appreciate any information from your manual, especially on the correct procedure of changing both serpentine belts please at the moment?

Hope this finds everyone well and if the chap driving the white Hurricane through Crianlarich on Saturday, then congratulations on navigating those roads!